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World Cup 2010 Blog: FIFA World Rankings – October 2010

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FIFA World Rankings – October 2010 Posted: 20 Oct 2010 04:50 PM PDT Welcome to our monthly edition of Let’s Talk About Montenegro. After hovering somewhere between 64 and 75 for six months (110th in June of ‘09), they’ve just continued to rocket up the FIFA table: 73rd in August, 40th in September, with a landing spot of 26th this month. That’s right, this tiny Balkan country of 672,000, the 164th most populous country in the world, is the 26th best football team according to FIFA. Whether or not they got style points for Mirko Vucinic’s pantless celebration…well, let’s just assume they did. Anyone looking for Cinderella’s glass slipper should head to southeastern Europe. The other big winner from Europe is Russia, making it a splendid month for Eastern Europe – fifteen spots reclaimed for Dick “How Much Did You Say?” Advocaat and his World Cup 2018 hopeful friends. Guinea, meanwhile, earn the award for highest climb up the table. Thirty four places, which means they probably dropped a 34-0 loss from their rankings tabulation.

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World Cup 2010 Blog: World Cup In The Operating Room

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World Cup In The Operating Room Posted: 20 Oct 2010 04:00 AM PDT The game between France & Mexico in South Africa was notable for a number of reasons. France put in arguably the most abject performance of the tournament, including Nicolas Anelka politely telling Raymond Domenech to fluff himself, with the cherry the player strike shortly thereafter. Turns out not paying the utmost consideration to one’s duties was something of a trend that day – a Swiss doctor is in hot water for watching the game while performing abdominal surgery. Patrice Evra gives us his reaction upon hearing the news. The name is Vincent Bettschart, and he sounds like a surgeon from a straight-to-DVD horror flick, but since the patient is fine, Vincent may be a hero to multitaskers everywhere. The problem for Vince is that it appears this wasn’t an isolated incident. Turns out it wasn’t even his worst faux pas. Watching a World Cup match was but a minor misdemeanor compared to the time he took a half hour break during an operation for an adult beverage. Poor decision making all around from this man, since France v Mexico wasn’t much good anyway. Actually, pretty poor decision making from the Swiss medical field in general: But his employers are standing by him and his only punishment has been a stern talking-to. Even Anelka was booted from the team and he was just playing messenger.

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World Cup 2010 Blog: FIFA’s Week From Hell Carries On: Stadium Opponent Murdered.

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FIFA’s Week From Hell Carries On: Stadium Opponent Murdered. Posted: 18 Oct 2010 02:04 PM PDT The walls are crashing down around FIFA it would appear: Fresh on the back of news that World Cup votes were put up for sale (quelle freakin’ surprise), today it emerged that one of the men who alleged corruption in the building of South Africa’s Mbombela Staidum was murdered…by poison. [Segue to music indicating a supremely dramatic turn in events.] This brings the death tally surrounding the stadium, which is quite lovely (in a crazy “I might kill you” sort of way), to nine. James Nkambule collapsed and died at his home in Mpumalanga province last week. A confidential autopsy report said the 37-year-old was poisoned, according to South Africa’s Sunday Times . Nkambule was reportedly the ninth local official in the past two years to be murdered or die in suspicious circumstances, allegedly for standing in the way of the tender process for the R1.3bn (£118m) Mbombela stadium in Nelspruit. He claimed that corrupt politicians were behind a “hit list” in Mpumalanga and gave a copy to journalists and police. He said a Mozambican hit man known as “Josh” had confessed his involvement in the killings. Nkambule was attempting to get Josh into a witness protection programme, the Sunday Times said. The story seems far more than simply a do-gooder murdered by evil baddies, so the rest of the story and background – along with the link from the bottom – is certainly worth a read. More than simply an incident within South Africa involving the infrastructure from a past tournament, this is another damaging blow to FIFA given its timing. The organization’s integrity, always questioned in the dark corners, is now on public trial, so this won’t help. And as always, somehow Sepp is to blame for this too.

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World Cup 2010 Blog: US Drops World Cup 2018 Bid; England Drops World Cup 2022 Bid.

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US Drops World Cup 2018 Bid; England Drops World Cup 2022 Bid. Posted: 15 Oct 2010 11:00 AM PDT These moves have been unofficial for some time with FIFA reportedly just dropping them from consideration and pushing the 2018 World Cup to Europe, but today they’ve been made official – probably with some heavy pushing from FIFA. Nothing’s really changed but the names on the bid committee: World Cup 2018 has always been heading to Europe, while 2022 will go either Asia (including Australia) or the US. The news reads as such: FIFA says the United States has pulled out of the bidding race for the 2018 World Cup to focus on getting hosting rights in 2022. FIFA says the decision, which had been expected, comes after “months of careful deliberation” between FIFA, UEFA and the U.S. bid team. Which happened swiftly as “What’s wrong with you? You’re wasting our time.” What should be the final bid setup for both 2018 & 2022: 2018 Bids Belgium & Netherlands England Portugal & Spain Russia 2022 Bids Australia Japan Qatar South Korea United States To be honest – and with a little help from those in the know at World Football Insider – the feeling here has always been the two bids in the news, England and the US, are the slight favorites for victory. FIFA even has granted one language a three-peat – Argentina, Spain & Mexico (which was originally given to Colombia, as well) – so going back-to-back with the English language nations likely won’t be a problem. But wouldn’t England and the US four years apart just be too…boring and vanilla?

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